A research team at UC Berkeley will report that irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods. Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance -- the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team, led by Professor Michael Hout, will formally disclose results of the study at the press conference.

My only question (and one I intend to ask) is who paid for this research - California taxpayers or a sponsor? California is due to come up about $8 billion dollars short in revenues in the current fiscal year, yet the state university system is spending money researching another states voting issues? What would the Governator say about that?

No one has seen the research, which probably means it is of the same high quality as that produced by a certain Dr. Hailey. It's probably not a good sign for the Bezerkly professor that the lead media cheerleader for conspiracy theories - the ever unquestioning Keith Olbermann - poo poo's your findings before he's even seen them.

Update: Their work is available here. A quick scan leads me to believe that there are probably many variables not controlled for; one that they either didn't use or just plain ignored. Where is the African-American factor, since that's all we heard about in 2000?

It's also curious that they didn't use exit poll data, as unreliable as that may be, to compare the exit poll reported percentage vote for Bush (plus a 3% adjustment for under reporting) as a variable. That is in fact the analysis that that head to the exit poll outfit did. I'll dig up a link on his quotes ASAP.

Obviously that's just a quick take, more detailed assessments may follow. If you're a social scientist, and doing peer review on the UCB work I want your take as well...

- Aside from using badly needed Cal tax dollars for this intemperate foolishness I for one want the moonbats to run out the string.... sort through the "mysterious" overcounts in the hundreds, where vote margins for Bush is at 395K as it now stands....go through the rural counties of Ohio with a fine tooth comb, spending hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars..... keep going till they're down to seperating a few specs of fly-dodo from the pepper....then when the asshats have exhausted all possibilities they can switch over to the usual gush of conspiracy theories and the yammering will quiet down....Overall good therupy for the eternally deluded....

- Olbermann seems to be trying to back away from his strident moon-battyness....

I have to wonder what countiues they're "researching." I live in Clay County, Florida, just south of Jacksonville. We use electronic optical scanners for voting: you get a large heavy paper ballot, which you mark by connecting a broken arrow with a black Sharpie. You then tear off the numbered tab on the ballot and place it into the scanner machine.

Our county relected Bush by about 69%-31%.

All the "researchers" would have to do is look at the last election to see the same or similar results.

My guess is that they're not looking at history. This is the same "theory" about why some counties in Florida with 70% Democratic registered voters wound up going 60% or more for Bush. The simple fact is that some of these people have been registered Dems since the dark ages, but wouldn't vote for one now if their lives depended on it. They're call "blue dog Democrats," and they voted the same way last time. But no one bothered to look before coming up with their conspiracy theories.

Go ahead, breathe hope and outrage into these people before we snatch it all away from them again. Believe me, there are moonbats who carry yet a glimmer of hope that Bush really didn't win and that somehow justice will be done. This might just revive their dreams, fan that spark into a flame before we douse it yet again and just laugh and laugh.

Hey guys would believe that the " ex espn sportscaster" replied to an e-mail I sent him. Man was he ever PO! Must have hit a exposed nerve. I replied back each time and he has answered 4 times. Must be getting to him. LOL. If I knew how I would post them here for you to read. Man was that "fun".

Well, when you can't win elections, you have a lot of free time to try to attack the administration and it's legitimacy, so i'm not surprised a lot of moonbats are still crying about it being "stolen".

This is probably just a media ploy by UCB. In any case, when this is all settled and Bush is still the winner, democrats won't be able to whine. Okay, so they'll whine... just not about cheating as much. Oh, who am I kidding? They'll still whine non-stop.

even as a moonbat (liberal, I guess) I question where the funding is coming from for this. It would be interesting to know the reason for shift in voting for strategic campaigning in the next election. As a social scientist just glancing at the data I don't feel as if there is enough control of the variables either and there are more variables that I would like to know about such as average time to wait to vote at each polling station and religious affiliation characteristics in each county. This is some interesting information however. Count this one liberal as one who is not thrilled with the election results but have let it go, and I am also damn P.O.'edabout the treatment of that young marine on video shooting the enemy, he is a hero and I am telling all my friends to let this issue go to. I want that young man in a ticker tape parade down the middle of every city in this country.

I guess this is the new paradigm for the Democrat Party: Lose elections over and over and over again and then claim the election was stolen by their opponents. Hey, as long as those Leftists are out of power they can count ballots to their hearts' content.

I suggest we all get behind the recount. The results will confirm the results and we can insist that the moonbats shut their stupid traps. Not that they will, but it'll be just one more bit of ammunition.

Imagine saying to the next moonbat you encounter, "You're STILL fucking talking about this?! You folks paid for a recount and STILL lost. GET OVER IT YOU FREAKING IDIOT!" Then you can invite them over for a beer.

patrick, we don't equate "moonbat" with liberal. We equate "moonbat" with "looney-toon wacko of the leftward persuasion," just as "wingnut" seems to refer to the "looney-toon wacko of the rightward persuasion."

Count this one liberal as one who is not thrilled with the election results but have let it go, and I am also damn P.O.'ed about the treatment of that young marine on video shooting the enemy, he is a hero and I am telling all my friends to let this issue go to. I want that young man in a ticker tape parade down the middle of every city in this country.

Previous comments of yours notwithstanding, these do not strike me as the words of a looney-toon wacko. Well said.

Omni, I agree. The more stirred up and looney they are, the worse their chances of retaking Congress in '06 or fielding a credible candidate in '08.

With all of Kerry's advantages, extremely friendly press corps, more money than his Republican opponent (when's the last time a Dem had that?), a bloody war, the perception of a weak economy (if not the reality), a stock market that was still lower than what it was when the incumbent was sworn in and the perception by many that Bush is the most reviled world figure even against bin Laden, he still lost.

Does anyone think the Dems will have a similar set of advantages next time around?

I'm a statistician, and one thing that's striking is that they give no interval for the 130,733 number that they give. I'm in the middle of replicating their analysis and providing that interval. Should be interesting.

- Dead Parrot James - The REAL problem with the 130K number is it consists almost entirely of "set-aside" ballots, ballots that have been temporarily rejected for all sorts of reasons, most notibly lack of proof that the voter is actually alive and breathing and isn't named "Plastic Man", "Elvis", or "Mickey Mouse".

- Everyone in the Ohio Election board, Democrat, Conservative, whatever, has said publicly over and over that in general only something less than 20% of set-asides in the best instance turn out to be legitimate and that even then Kerry would have next to zero chance of getting more than 60% at best. You do the math.

- But it doesn't matter to moonbats, (patrick definately not reffering to you), they simply refuse to deal with reality. Denial seems to be hereditary in lab rats and Socialists....

- Dead Parrot James - The REAL problem with the 130K number is it consists almost entirely of "set-aside" ballots, ballots that have been temporarily rejected for all sorts of reasons, most notibly lack of proof that the voter is actually alive and breathing and isn't named "Plastic Man", "Elvis", or "Mickey Mouse".

Nothing of the sort. The model they build has absolutely nothing to do with so-called "set-aside" ballots. They use the vote totals as reported by Florida; that is, they use votes that have counted.

- DPJ- ...I thought you were referring to Ohio.... as andre just posted...in Florida its just plain forget it....Besides most of the so called "registered" Dem argument is all about Dixiecrats who voted for Bush which has been shown over and over but again the moonies just can't deal with reality.... but hey..... let 'em count to thier hearts content.....

Amazing how people with little understanding of the methods used feel free to criticize the voting research, making statements that are obviously contradicted in the research itself. The cozy comfort of talk radio, where everyone agrees on something and then spend their time egging each other on into their ill-founded beliers, is reflected in this "discussion" here. Just a taste of what's to come in Bush's American Dream.